42nd District tournaments: Scott County eyes sweep of titles

Both Scott County teams enter as the top seeds in the 42nd District basketball tournaments, which tip off Monday.

The Cardinals’ boys took a beating from Paul Laurence Dunbar in their last outing, an uncharacteristically bad performance by a youthful bunch that has played beyond its years. Scott County’s leading scorers, Michael Moreno (14.6 ppg) and Bryce Long (12.4 ppg), are freshmen, and next is sophomore Cooper Watts (10.7 ppg). Senior Clem Damron and junior Cooper Watts provide veteran presence in the middle.

Sophomore Peyton Riddle’s 13.6 scoring average highlights the girls’ team, which won a coin flip for the top seed against Henry Clay. It also won nine of its 10 games against 11th Region foes and four of its last five down the stretch.

Henry Clay’s entrants have No. 2 seeds. Mr. Basketball candidate Isaiah Tisdale is attracting Division I attention for the Blue Devils’ boys, who were swept 2-0 by Scott County in the regular season but went 7-0 down the stretch against other top-25 teams. T’laya Lyvers is a triple-double threat for their girls, who suffered several losses to top-ranked opponents in the second half of the season.

Neither team from Bryan Station enters with a favorable seed, but both sets of enigmatic Defenders have the talent to advance.

The boys’ stable of senior guards — Andre Davis, Tim Dunn and Rafael Few — can run with anybody and are more complete with the return of senior big man Deandre Dishman, who suffered a leg injury at the start of the season. The girls are similar in their guard-heavy approach. Carah Burdette, Destiny Cozart, Ezzy Ighodaro and Jlyn Martin have double-figure scoring averages for the Defenders.

Sayre’s seasons have gone in opposite directions. The boys won their last two regular-season games but went 1-11 in the prior 12, most of those against much larger schools. The Spartans feature one of the region’s most gifted scorers in Jake Duby, who leads the team in scoring (24.9 ppg) and rebounding (7.4 rpg).

The Spartan girls went 19-6 in the regular season, five of those losses coming after junior guard Ellie Alford suffered a broken foot. They defeated Bryan Station on Jan. 11, giving them a district win in consecutive years for the first time since the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons.

This story was originally published February 21, 2016 at 7:08 PM with the headline "42nd District tournaments: Scott County eyes sweep of titles."